


A Thousand Cranes

by owlbsurfinbird



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Wishes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-15 20:38:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1318420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlbsurfinbird/pseuds/owlbsurfinbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James makes a wish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thousand Cranes

Ivory lotus blossoms on aquamarine waves. James pushed the little lopsided paper crane into the pile with the others. 

Sitting in mandatory training sessions on investigative protocols was tedious. Electronic devices were verboten. He needed something to occupy his hands, his mind. 

He found the paper crane in his course materials, squashed and torn. The Wikipedia pattern used to make it was barely legible, as if the person making it couldn't follow directions and kept folding and refolding. He torn off a piece of notebook paper and took most of an hour to slowly fashion his first crane. 

It made him smile.  
++++  
"That's how he started. Make a thousand cranes and make a wish. But he won't finish before the party at the rate he's going." Robbie Lewis wrapped his hands around his coffee mug.

"He doesn't have to finish before he makes inspector, does he? It's an arbitrary deadline."

"It's important to him, Laura. So, will you help?"

"God, Robbie, I'm horrible at arts and crafts." She rubbed her hands on her thighs. "Do you have origami paper?"  
++++++++  
Traditionally, forty strings of twenty-five cranes were strung with a bead at either end and then hung outside so that the wish would carry on the wind.

The idea of a wish carried on the wind startled whimsy in his mind, a bit of hope with feathers. Each crane would be a way of working through what he had seen and felt over the last eight years, he decided. 

One night he cried over the Zelinski case. His thumbs pressed the creases with precision and anger over the monster that killed her. He sealed the panic, the frustration, the horror in every fold as if the paper could contain it. Each hard edged crease bit into the pain, lessening it. The final crane of the string was for her, of course. White with tiny red lotus flowers. Perfect.

Each string became a case. A black crane for the body. Blue cranes for the legwork. Green for the leads. Red for excitement of the chase. White for resolution and the victim. 

He didn't see the pattern until he took the strings he'd made and taped them to a wall in his flat. 

Beautiful. 

It is deeply satisfying to make something, even so simple as a crane, he thought.

++++++  
"Where did you get the paper for these, Ma'am?"

"Robbie, it's Jean, now that you're retired." She folded her arms. "I copied and printed out Shakespeare onto red paper, that's all. Picked the least objectionable origami papers. Turned out well, I'd say."  
The string of twenty five cranes stretched out on her desk, alternating red and white.

She smiled sadly. "I've had a lot of time on my hands alone at home since my divorce. Think I should make another string?"

"Can't hurt." Robbie gave her an understanding smile.

++++++++++  
It disturbed James when he couldn't remember each twist and turn of a case. Sickened him when he barely remembered the victim. 

So he studied old case files telling himself that he was looking for things that could have been handled differently. Studied the dense legal materials required for the inspector exam. Studied. 

Making the cranes became meditative, soothing. He'd sift through the papers looking for specific colors or images to tell the story.  
+++++++++++  
"Thanks for this information, Gurdip. Hope you didn't use up too many valuable police resources."

"My pleasure. I—well—" He reached under his desk, handed Robbie a large paper bag. "It's not a whole string, but each one makes a difference." The cranes were fashioned from different kinds of paper. 

"Is that the menu from—"

"Yes! And here is a budget report, a concert program, a book jacket. Monkey paper."

Robbie's eyebrows rose enquiringly.

"Because you can never have too many monkeys."

++++++++++++

Thirty strings hung on the wall. The early ones were methodical, precise, following a theme. The later ones were erratic, a few even depressing, heavier than the rest, a whisper when he walked by. Dark and disturbing thoughts creased on blood red paper, cranes with pointed beaks and clipped wings. 

+++++++++++++

"Do you remember my Sergeant Hathaway? Yeah? Well, he's being promoted to Inspector and we're asking people for a favor…." 

+++++++++++++  
There were thirty three strings the morning he woke up to be an Inspector. He was one hundred and twenty five short. He sighed. He could always finish in the coming weeks, but there had been something symbolic in attempting to finish before he received the title of Inspector. 

+++++++++++++  
James was looking at his mobile and nearly dropped it when he saw strings of cranes hanging in the conference room. There were his thirty-three, but, oh, the others.

Robbie had strung a note at the top of each string. Innocent's string of red and white cranes _(Does she know that she's combined colors that mean 'happiness in love'?)_

Then there were strings of random cranes interspersed with notes. _"I wanted you to know that I didn't grow up angry. Zoe."_ The crane was made from a Cornell class schedule.

Five exquisite cranes were hand-painted with a familiar scene of river and clouds bracketed by trees. _"Now I understand the moonbeams."_

 _"I forgive you. Rachel."_ Adam's girlfriend had made her crane from a drawing made by her dead sister. 

There were many, many others. The family and friends of the victims he'd memorialized had made their own cranes. For him.

His friends stood at the back of the room, giving him space and silence. A wall of fluttering paper is impressive. _Silly, perhaps, to think that a thousand paper cranes could make a wish come true,_ he thought.

Robbie touched his arm, smiled. "This all white one? That's mine."

And James made his wish.


End file.
